12/1/16: For four years, (The) Absolute has been a labor of love amongst writers, artists and freelancers who donated their time (and amazing tastes) into making this site the best place for recommendations. Unfortunately, as of today, we'll no longer be publishing new articles. As much as it pains us to have to walk away, we're leaving the site up so that visitors can still enjoy the hundreds of awesome recommendations we have written throughout these years. Thanks for supporting us!

Jurassic World takes place 20 years after Steven Spielberg’s hit film Jurassic Park and revolves around the bioengineering company InGen creating a hybrid dinosaur called the Indominous Rex.

Due to genetic tampering, the Indominous is very aggressive and managed to get out of her cage. She then wreaks havoc and even manages to convince the velociraptors that were being trained by Own Grady to turn on the humans.

At first glance, the Indominous Rex appears to be the villain of the piece. After all, she killed other dinosaurs for sport and had no problems chowing down on humans. However, upon closer examination, the Indominous Rex is actually the tragic figure of the film and InGen is revealed to be the true villains.

There used to be a popular website called Stuff Overheard in New York (that, surprisingly, is still up) that highlighted all the odd things locals and visitors stumble across while moseying around the city. Considering there are 8 million people living here from all cultures, economic backgrounds, and walks of life, it’s no surprise that things gets a little weird from time to time.

Illustrator Andrea Tsurumi, who we wrote about last year for her hilarious mini comic about an ass-kicking Andrew Jackson, has a new ongoing series called Eavesdropper, which is a lot like the illustrated version of Stuff Overheard in New York. Presented like a visual diary, Tsurumi describes her city encounters day-by-day, observing the surprising politeness of “Don’t sit there!” or “Watch your bag!” and highlighting how entertaining one 5-minute transfer at the train station can be. If you liked this, Tsurumi also has another ongoing comic about books called Library Book.

There’s nothing like a good producer/MC combo, and this new single by London DJ Last Japan and rapper AJ Tracey is the perfect example why. Hot off a string of successful mixtapes, Last Japan’s newest offering is a dark, intergalactic foray that sounds like it’s seeping from the underpass of some secret rave. Released on Coyote Records, which is typically known for leaning more on the instrumental side of grime, “Ascend” pairs Last Japan’s cinematic synths with AJ Tracey’s rapid fire lyrics. Despite its tad over-produced sound, “Ascend” is one of those tracks that, once you hear it, will stay in your rotation for a while.

If you liked this, make sure to check out their EP when it drops on Coyote Records in May.

There’s no place on Earth as mysterious as the ocean floor. Pitch black and still largely unexplored (we humans can only withstand so much pressure crushing our soft, fleshy bodies), the ocean floor is a lot like space–it’s vast, it’s mysterious and oddly beautiful. Endless Gravity, a short film shot by Alex Soloviev, is a look at the alluring beauty of ocean creatures. As they float about the screen, their movements against the black backdrop make it look like they’re floating in an endless space–hence the name. Add the ominous spoken poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the ambient soundtrack and you have an experience that’s as close to exploring the ocean floor as you’re going to get.

Drake’s known for a lot of things: being emotional, coining YOLO, being emotional. But one thing he’s not known for is being sweet and highly caloric. Instagram account @drakeoncake combines two drastically different things and brings them together, like sewn-in dickies. Created by New Orleans backer @joythebaker, the account is cake porn combined with Drake lyrics. It’s so ingenious it’ll make you wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself. Oh yeah, we know: cause we hate cooking.

There’s a lot we love about animator Makoto Shinkai, whether it’s his pertinence for slow narratives or his obsession with melancholic atmospheres. But Shinkai is as much a master of creating stunning backgrounds as he is a storyteller. The Garden of Words, a short film about a lonely teenage boy and his relationship with a 27-year-old woman, is one of Shinkai’s better known films, and one of the best things about the film are all the gorgeous background shots of rainy Shinjuku. Rain is a major theme of the whole film, and Shinkai manages to turn slick streets and drenched gardens into scenes that have a life of their own.

The Garden of Words: Memories of Cinema is an art book that compiles all of Shinkai’s stunning background art for the film. At $75 a pop, it’s only recommended for hardcore fans, but we included a few images above for you to gawk at from afar. If you haven’t seen the film yet, watch the trailer.

In Right Click to Necromance the attention span of a player is not sustained by the affirmation of a goal they reach towards. Instead it relies on the fascination of an ever increasing army. Kill some enemies on screen, raise them from the dead, your army is now one third larger than it was before. Now rinse, repeat, and continue because the game never stops, it only becomes more difficult to maintain your mass of rampant infantry.

I thought I would only sit down and play the game for 20 minutes at the most, but an hour later I was still clicking away in hopes that I could somehow make my army larger. There was something about the idea of seeing the number of people I had control over increase on the screen that made me stay longer than I expected, and since the game does not have a goal for players to progress towards, the journey is neverending.